Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/474

 458 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

There is, first, the railroad corporation. It is the owner of the one of our quasi-public institutions most closely connected with our economical evolution. Being the most important factor, it naturally dictates where it can, and, by monopolizing, leads the traffic into channels most profitable to itself, in spite of competi- tion between the several companies. This phase of the trust problem, however, has a too long, eventful, and well-known his- tory in this country to need more than a few passing remarks as to its relation to the spreading and the form of the national trust problem. Directly, the railroad company gives little cause for complaint, and is doing its best to further trade and traffic ; but indirectly it is, and has always been, a nursery for the trust idea. Its officials are reared under the spell of an imperious dis- cipline, and they subsequently demand from their subordinates a service whose nature is in absolute contrast to the spirit of our national institutions. This must be considered of grave conse- quence, because so great a part of the population is engaged in railroading or directly connected with this traffic.

The railroad problem is kept alive in the public mind by con- tinuous scheming and efforts toward merging by the larger road trying to gobble up the smaller and weaker one in order to diminish competition. Efforts like these may, when success- ful, be fraught with dangers to the national commerce, but as a local problem they always tend to simplify the commerce and to benefit the industries by eliminating extra charges for running cars from one line into or over another. Hence the unwilling- ness of the industrial and commercial part of the public to become alarmed. If the question of governmental ownership could be solved as a local problem, if the cities could be the owners of tracks, lines, and yards inside a connecting belt line, maintaining them and charging a wheelage fee for their use, equal for all, then the same ends could probably be gained as aimed at by complete ownership, and the problem would thus lose its tremendous financial proportions. But, to leave the rail- road problem, the attention of the general public is sufficiently centered to remove any fear of immature legislation.

The next source of extraordinary evolution of the trust can